Customer Reviews

TRENDnet 4-Port USB 2.0 KVM Switch and Cable Kit TK-407K (Blue)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I've seen many comment on its placement of the connections, one each side making it a pain. Ok, that's true. My problem is I use VMWare often. When I move my mouse into the VM the KVM thinks I did something and it changes to the next computer. I then have to press the button on top switch.
Even with the slight hassle of hitting the button now and then after going into a VM, it's still worth it.
Other than it's funny plug locations on all sides, and the VM issue, its fine.

Our company purchased this item to switch between two G4 Power Macs and two older PC's. The Macs work perfectly--flawlessly--with this switch. Switching is almost instantaneous and we've not seen an error yet. However, the older PC's (running Windows 98) are a little squirrely in that they do find the USB keyboard and mouse, but when they are switched off for another computer for a while they lose track of the KVM switch, thus can't be accessed, and we have to hard restart them. I think this has more to do with the age of these PC's and their OS. If we had newer PC's running XP I think they would behave better. In the meantime, we will simply leave a keyboard & mouse plugged into each PC so we can restart them when they get lost.

There is one caveat about this switch: Trendnet uses a proprietary cabling system. The cables are NOT standard USB & VGA cables, but are an odd combination that will only work with the Trendnet switch. If this switch were to fail in the future, we would either have to buy another Trendnet switch or replace it with a different brand along with cables ($).

If you don't mind the cables, this switch is definitely the best bang for the buck.

I have had this KVM switch for about 2 months now. No problem encountered so far. Compared to 2-port IOGear KVM I used in the past, it is comparable in performance while cheaper.
I have 2 Windows XP machines and 1 Ubuntu connected to this switch.
For some reason, I have to hit Num Lock instead of Scroll Lock when
switching out of Ubuntu. That's no problem as long as it works.
It seems to take about 2 seconds to switch between machines, which is acceptable though a bit slower than IOGear.
One thing I found out is that if a machine is down, you cannot switch out of it until it completely boots again. This may be more than an inconvenience. I am not sure if that was the case with IOGear, or all other KVMs.
All in all, this KVM works for me well, and the price was right.
In any event, that would be bad if a machine

I had minor compatibility issue with one of the PC i have. After a couple of month of usage it will develop a issue with the PC where when i switch to that PC it will continue to blink the green light and will not turn solid and i was not able to see what is going on with that PC. After i plug all the cables and reconnected back to the KVM it will work. Can not get it to work if i only unplug the problem PC, all the cable needs to be removed ( i guess for it to rest or something).

I loved using this kvm switch. I have had no problems with it . I am using it only with ubuntu and windows. Haven't tried out mac yet.Will updated this space if I try that . the kvm switch worked flawlessly and coolest part was the 4 cables that came along with it.

-Himanshu

I was happy with this switch while it lasted. The construction looked a little cheap, but it was functional and didn't take up too much space on my desk. I used this unit to switch a monitor and my wireless keyboard & mouse between 2 different desktops (linux) and a laptop (windows 7). I started having intermittent problems after about 14 months of daily use. Initially it struggled to switch the monitor on the first try. Within a month it was unresponsive.

This thing just works. No issues in our Windows environment, if you want to use a cheap Logitech wireless keyboard / mouse combo off the front (we use the MK320 cordless desktop set) it could not be more simple. Quite pleased with this cheap KVM; anyone who remembers the bad old days of flaky, low-res PS/2 KVM switches should be happy with this. Have not tried it in a virtual environment yet, and I feel sorry for anyone trying to use a KVM in a mixed Linux / Windows environment. Given that this is so far headache free and comes with all the cables you need, I would gladly order more for the asking price of forty bucks.

This is a great little KVM for the price. I have been using it for about 6 months now and it works pretty good. The only issue I have with it is that every once in a while, it will flake out and not work until you unhook each of the connections and then plug them all back in again. This has only happened to me once in 6 months though, so not a huge issue.

For certain reasons, I cannot use Num Lock to switch between computers. The reason I bought this particular KVM switch was so I would not have to use the manual methods of switching - I have to switch manually. It would have been nice if I could choose which key is programmed for switching. The scroll lock method falls short as well. I have a Linux computer in my array. If I press scroll-lock, scroll-lock, 1 to take me to my Windows 7 computer on port 1, I am taken to my Linux computer on port 3 and cannot move from there except by manually selecting. The software supplied does not run on a Linux machine. I called customer support and they were of no help. I could have purchased a much cheaper device.

After buying a different brand and failing to get it to work, I borrowed one of these from a friend, to try out before purchasing. I only needed two of its ports, for a Win XP desktop and a Win 7 laptop, but things have gone very smoothly, and I am using it without incident. Even though the formats of the laptop monitor (which I leave running) and the PnP desktop monitor are quite different, the device handles the translation with ease.

Only three minor caveats:
**The laptop display (a corporate computer) needed to be told to recognize the desktop's monitor, but that was done easily from the right-click "Screen Resolution" selection.
**This model is advertised on Amazon as a USB 2.0. However, if you go directly to TRENDnet's own website, you will see that it is only USB 1.1.
**The cables are unusual, in that they are D-sub/USB-A to D-sub only. That could interfere with some people's plans to use cables they already own.